


A Broken Thread

by Fuzziestpuppy



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 4
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Complete, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, M/M, Pre-Canon, Sexual Content, Sexual Healing lol, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2020-11-01 12:22:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20815091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuzziestpuppy/pseuds/Fuzziestpuppy
Summary: The thread that had connected him and Ishwari, grown so thin with all that time, with all those miles, had finally snapped with her death.  And when it did, the last little crack in his armor had closed up tight.Divya showed him how to pry it open again.In turn, he recognizes that same hard sheen of misery in Ajay's eyes, the one he used to see in his own in the mirror.  Walking wounded and harried by his own ghosts, but he knows what to do, how to help.She showed him, after all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is partly based on Divya's Travel Blog, a now-defunct page that Ubisoft released before the game in 2014. It was only up for maybe a year, so a lot of people who were late to the party didn't get to see it. Hell, a lot of people who WERE there for the party probably missed it too, it's sort of obscure. But it's fascinating, contains a lot of interesting backstory, and features one _very_ tense dinner for two. 
> 
> Here's the Wayback link for it:
> 
> [Divya's Travel Blog](https://web.archive.org/web/20150203231731/http://divyakandala.com/)
> 
> As always, thank you to my beta readers for this one, [BunnyMoss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunnyMoss/pseuds/BunnyMoss) and [Thegirlnamedhawk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thegirlnamedhawk/pseuds/Thegirlnamedhawk).

**Divya**

***

Pagan Min would be the first to admit that he is a man of sometimes capricious desires.

He could have had just about any flavor of man or woman he wanted waiting for him whenever he desired it, spread across his fine silk sheets and moaning theatrically. Hell, could have had just about anyone in all of Kyrat marched into the King’s bedchamber, if consent wasn’t a hangup, if he were the utter monster that the Golden Path makes him out to be.

Could have had anything, anyone at all, could have any three Playboy models in here, shit, any four, it was a big bed, fake tits pressed all over him; could have drowned in rock-hard abs and big arms or thin, beautiful musician types with lots of tattoos and more eyeliner than himself. Anything money could buy.

But none of that was what he wanted, not a bit. What he needed didn’t come with a price tag.

If Ishwari had never come into his life and loved him like a storm, like a whirlwind and then blew out of it again, he might have been tempted. Or perhaps just confused, might have gone down that path and gotten love mixed up with payout and kept looking for signs of caring in any of those young and nubile people. Someone who gave a shit about him, in spite of the fact that he was paying for their company.

He’s been terrifically lonely at points, but that bullshit would have just rubbed salt in all his wounds.

Ishwari had said, ‘I love you and we’ll be together again,’ and he had taken that literally. Perhaps that was a promise that she’d ultimately meant to keep, but he’ll never fucking know because she had gone and left him for good, _really_ left him in the most permanent of ways. The thread that had stretched between them, still there but worn so thin by all those years, by all those miles, had finally snapped in a dark tailspin of old regrets.

She never would have expected or wanted him to live like a monk, but for him it was her or no one. Alone with his dreams of her was better than with someone who didn’t give two shits whether he lived or died.

He hadn’t quite managed to find that person yet, the one who _cared._ At least a little. Not that he was really looking, either.

Right about the time that he was learning of Ishwari’s far too untimely death and not really dealing with the emotional fallout, that infuriating young reporter managed to sneak herself into Kyrat and annoyingly onto his radar. Intelligent, resourceful, stubborn, inquisitive, constantly poking her nose into matters she _really_ doesn’t fucking understand and being shocked when life in Kyrat doesn’t follow her own idealistic and naïve moral code. Her relentlessly English sensibilities. Without even realizing it, she’s managed to make a profession of being a thorn in his side.

So, of course, he invites the charming Divya Kandala to dinner. Not that she had a great deal of choice in the matter, but still, he’d been polite about it.

An act that he almost immediately comes to regret. She’s terrified even as she’s fascinated with him, but what surprises him is how much she scares _him._ Something about her provokes unexpected and frankly shocking honesty in him, and over the crab rangoon he tells her things that not even Yuma knows about the innermost workings of his mostly faltering regime. They discuss and debate the merits of those two Golden Path fools who fancy themselves leaders, of such lovely Kyrati institutions as that fucking arena and she verbally goes toe-to-toe with him despite that fear. She even _corrects him_ at one point. So nice, so refreshing to speak to somebody with some goddamn brains, even if she still has the charming idealism of a young person whom nothing very unpleasant has ever happened to.

And then he goes and ruins it, of course he fucking does. 

He admittedly…overreacts a bit to her own confession of reading Yuma’s journals when she inadvertently stabs straight into the most wounded parts of him. Wanting _context._ Before he quite realizes it his fingers trace over the knife next to his plate, a physical blade to match the one she just sank into him, old instincts bellowing for him to strike back when struck, pain for pain and blood for blood. Intuitive woman, because she senses it, even when he makes himself move his fingers away from it and pick up his wineglass instead. Still watching him steadily, but when he draws close to her end of the table he can _smell_ her. Her lovely, subtle perfume, warm skin...and raw, rankest fear.

He moves closer still, touches her hand gently in reassurance and turns off her phone's recorder as he sits down beside her, reassures her again that she can have her precious context. Straight from the fucking source this time, but that miasma of fear doesn’t dissipate.

Still in mourning black and with a king’s wealth on his fingers, he withdraws his hand when he notes how icy hers is, more troubled and disappointed than he had thought he’d be. Why did he even bother with the rings? Did he think he’d somehow impress her by flaunting his money at her? Bloody idiot.

God, she terrifies him, and he wonders if she can smell it on _him,_ right over his own expensive cologne because all of a sudden he finds himself teetering on the brink of pure insanity...and then slides right off that edge. 

He tells her everything. 

Like an utter madman, he tells her _everything._ The whole sordid tale from beginning to end, baring his tattered and dirty soul. He doesn’t even know why. Perhaps just the weight of it too heavy to bear alone anymore, grown so heavy that he feels compelled to load it onto this idealistic stranger.

It takes him nearly three entire hours, and by the end of it he finds himself having to force his shoulders to straighten out of their slump.

“Well, I believe more wine is in order, don’t you?” And for the first time, there’s more thoughtfulness than fear in her face. A softness in her eyes when she looks at him that he’s not sure he wants or even likes, after he has it.

When he escorts her to the guest suite on the second floor himself, both of them a little buzzed on that dinner wine, there are perhaps five seconds while they stand at the doorway in which he’s sure she means to move close, to go up on tiptoes and kiss him.

But she ultimately thinks better of it, he can see that too, as he watches that softness in her eyes war with that fear of him...and lose. She murmurs a quiet goodnight and more or less shuts the door in his face, rather than inviting him in. He had it at perhaps ten to one odds that she might make that offer, and no clear idea of how he would have responded to it even if it had happened.

Entirely for the best this way.

Much, much later, once he’s sure that she’s sleeping soundly, he slides into her room without a sound, on sock feet. He stands there for a moment and listens to her soft, even breaths in the dark as he places her passport with the plane ticket tucked inside on top of her luggage. Right where she'll see it first thing.

Mission complete, he wanders down the hall, goes alone to his own room and readies himself for bed, lies down with his hands folded under his head and stares at the ceiling. He can tell already that this is going to be one of the bad nights, one of the ones where his ghosts will stalk him, whispering endlessly in his ear. He’s gone and invoked them, like they’re at all an appropriate topic for dinner conversation. Maybe he’s finally getting old, gone senile. Or maybe just sick to death of being loathed for what he’s not, and not despised for what he actually is.

On that self-pitying and convoluted thought he gets up to stalk the hallways, an apparition in pajamas, bare feet padding out the old measured pace down to one end and then the other. Past his door, past her door, again and again.

He’s on perhaps the fifteenth pass when her door swings open right as he’s striding by, startling him. Startling her too, very obviously not expecting him to be there. Her eyes squint against the dim hallway lighting.

“What are you doing out here? It’s…” she consults her watch blearily. “It’s two-thirty in the morning.”

“I didn’t mean to disturb you, my dear,” he says, just then aware that he hadn’t even bothered with his robe, clad only in soft drawstring pants. He rubs at his bare stomach a little ruefully. “I often don’t sleep well. Walking helps sometimes.”

“Well, do you have to do it right _here?_” She snaps it out, and then realizes what she’s said, her eyes widening in fear. “Oh, oh _shit,_ I am so sorry…”

He snorts, amused. “Don’t be. It’s just that this happens to be my hallway too. My room is just down there, you see. But I can find another to pace. Goodnight again Divya, and sleep well.”

But as he turns to go, she blurts out, “No, wait…”

When he looks at her inquisitively, one eyebrow raised, she reaches out to touch his hand. When he doesn’t pull away, she wraps her now warm fingers around his. Such a contrast to the icy cold of earlier.

She swallows, loud enough for him to hear, like she’s summoning her courage. Like she’s weighing the merits of something.

“Come in here with me.” And pulls him gently through the door.

Seems as if she’s not as afraid of him as he’d thought. His feet move of their own volition.

Her room is dark but for the moonlight streaming through the window, like a dream, just like a dream he’s had before. Partly memory and partly his aching, longing heart, bars of velvety shadow painting her skin. Her thick dark hair sliding through his hands as he buries them in it, that silver light glinting in the dark strands as her arms slide so warmly around him. _Pagan, Pagan, my love,_ the echo of _her_ in his head, her voice as warm as her arms.

But this dream’s not quite right, not when he doesn’t have to lean down nearly as far when her mouth rises to meet his. Her body presses sweetly against his bare chest but her smell and the taste of her, while lovely, isn’t right. Not her, not her, never will be again, _never,_ and his throat closes up.

“Shhh,” she says, sensing it. “I know, I know. It’s okay, if you can’t. I understand.” She might be the only person that does, that ever will. For some reason, he went and told her all those things that no one else knows. That no one left alive knows.

Honesty is a double-edged sword, and it feels a bit as if he’s put a weapon in her hand. Or maybe just handed her the master key to all his locks.

He suddenly grins, hard and sharp against her mouth, and pulls back. “Do you feel _sorry_ for me? Is this some kind of pity fuck? Or is it about bedding a king just to prove you could? Because I assure you, there’s going to be nothing _special_ about screwing me,” he says, the words laughingly bitter in his mouth. “Despite the title I’m just a man, after all, one that’s not young anymore and twenty years out of practice at this and…”

She rests her fingers against his lips, and surprised at her audacity, obligingly shuts up.

“I don’t have any illusions,” just that and nothing else, and leans in to press her mouth against the side of his throat.

She draws him down with her onto the bed and he’s too tired to resist, too tired of fleeing from his ghosts, too willing to pretend for just a little while. He lets her touch him and wrap herself around him, his hands in her thick glossy hair that is, was, so like Ishwari’s and he shuts his eyes to her face and lets his hands trace over her skin in the old, old way. He loses himself in the dream until he finally heats up under her hands and surrenders himself to her, lets throbbing instinct take over, and when he enters her with his eyes still closed she draws him into herself and holds him tight. So tightly, so that he won’t break apart. She won’t let him break apart. She knows.

“Yes, just like that, you’re doing fine,” she whispers in his ear, and he slides a hand between them and she gasps and rocks against him the harder.

“Pagan…”

_Pagan, my love…_

“Don’t, _don’t,_” he murmurs harshly and she holds him even tighter in apology, her hands gripping his sweating back. Her voice isn’t right but her little gasps and choked off cries of pleasure are just the same, so achingly familiar as she goes rigid in his arms, clenches around him, rippling around him in waves and that tips him over the edge right along with her.

_Ishwari, I never said it, I don’t know why I didn’t,_ and he goes cold all over even as he shudders against her, the dream ripping apart like tissue paper as goosebumps race up his back. _I’ll never know if you heard what I didn’t say._ His throat burns like ice.

Once their breathing has steadied he lets her kiss him, even manages to kiss her back while he’s still inside her because there’s no reason to shove her away and make her miserable when she’s only given him what she thought he needed. Held it out to him like a gift, which is far more than anyone’s bothered to do for what seems like a lifetime, and he holds her close. Even if the pleasure of it had made all his blood run cold. Like watching the first crack form in a dam. A blade to his throat.

“You okay,” she asks him drowsily.

“Yes, of course,” he makes himself say, all but numb.

She falls asleep almost immediately, and he slowly and carefully untangles them, covers her sleeping form with the duvet. As he’s pulling his pants back on, he studies her face in the moonlight and now he can see her for herself, just her, a gracious young woman. A _brave_ woman, trying to balance on unsteady ground.

In this light, she looks much younger than nearly thirty. More like the age that he was, that him and Ishwari were when the world fell out from under them. He brushes a strand of hair from her face and leans down and presses a kiss to her forehead.

“Pagan,” she murmurs in her sleep, or near sleep, but it doesn’t stab at him like it did before. He slips out just as quietly as he did the first time, pulling the door shut soundlessly behind him.

Back in his own bedroom, he strips again and gets the water started in the shower and sinks down into the floor of it. Just sits there with the hot water pounding down on the back of his neck, his bowed head in an unsuccessful attempt to chase that numb chill away. He considers indulging in a different kind of numbness, but it wouldn’t do any good. His stunned mind is already full of a kind of dull static.

However, what _does_ end up chasing that numb chill away is the text that he receives early the next morning, on the tail end of that long and mostly sleepless night.

All those years ago he lost so many pieces of himself, three of them pieces that he really couldn’t afford to lose…but one of them is coming back to him. His boy is coming back to him, is coming _home._

And in light of that, he has the servants throw back all the heavy curtains, picks out a snowy white shirt, his best cuff links, why the hell not. Done with black, with darkness, suddenly craving the sun. Divya shows up just as he’s fastening the diamonds at his wrists, her adorably tacky suitcase trailing behind her on a strap like an obedient dog. He looks into her face on this bright morning and only sees someone that might almost be a friend, a friendly face, because last night was just a dream conjured out of dark and moonlight.

A fever dream behind the dark of his closed eyelids.

He sees her off into Gary’s capable hands with a distracted goodbye, and hers is pretty much the same. Perfunctory, like she can’t wait to get out of this cesspool of a country and this madman at the center of it, locked in a gilded cage.

Well, he can hardly blame her. But he hopes she doesn't have any regrets.

As she’s heading out for the long drive down to the airport, he reads that text again and lets it warm him down to his soul. But it also makes him think. He brings up Divya’s number in his phone.

_My dear, I know that you said_   
_ that you weren’t sure if you were_   
_ going to write anything at all_   
_ But if you do, please be careful in_   
_ what you say. I shared with you a_   
_ good many secrets that could topple_   
_ a kingdom, if they got to the ears of_   
_ the right people. Or the wrong ones._

He hits send, sighs deeply, and starts another.

_I know that YOU know that I haven't_   
_ given a fuck for ages, but now I find_   
_ that I must hold onto this shitheap_   
_ for just a little while longer._

_Why?_ Is all she responds with.

_Because the next King of Kyrat is on his way home, and I must have a kingdom to hand to him,_ is what he writes, but on second thought he presses the backspace and erases it all.

_You’ll see :)_

_I think what I want to say_   
_ is that you’re a man with_   
_ your mind on the future_   
_ and your heart in the past._

_I think that’s what I’ll say._

She knows, better than anyone else, just how much truth there is in that.

_Thank you._

He types it out thoughtfully and sends it to her, and lets that stand for a lot of things.

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Ajay**

***

What follows is many, many more restless, sleepless nights, as the weeks turn into months of Ajay cutting a bloody swath through his birthright, ripping apart everything that Pagan wanted to leave to him.

Well, not like the whole fucking edifice isn’t crumbling already, now is it?

Much like himself, crumbling as he makes choices that leave everything teetering on the edge of disaster instead of just flat-out careening into it. He has to make the decision to wield Ajay like a weapon, to put him in harm’s way more than once. In his book that makes him no better than that goddamn yakfucker Sabal, but his other choices were so much worse.

He still aches with it deep down, as he paces, and paces, and _paces._ But he also knows that Ajay is half a wild thing with the finely-honed instincts to survive the messes he manages to get himself into. After all, a young man who is to be a King can’t be tamed or he is no King at all. And this is his trial by fire, his…apprenticeship, as it were.

But surely, he can help the boy along a bit, just a tiny bit? Like when he’d held that attack off at Banapur until Ajay had gotten clear, fairly sure that they’d been holding him against his will and he’d made his escape on that ATV. Only to have him come roaring back right into the middle of that mess. He seems very determined to do things right by the Golden Path; after all, if you’re going to do something, you may as well bother to do it _right._ At least he’s taken those words of advice to heart, actually listened for a moment to something he had to say. Even if everything else went right in one side of his handsomely shaggy head and directly out the other, such as _don’t move_ and _I will be right back._

That boy is going to be the death of him. Perhaps literally. It’s rare that a kingship changes hands in a _peaceful_ manner, after all.

Sometimes he catches himself thinking about what Divya would make of all this nonsense.

When the worry regarding Ajay’s health and safety gets too great he tends to fall off the wagon a bit. But he tries to keep the boozing and snorting to a minimum, he really does. Something tells him that Ajay would approve of that just about as much as his mother did, which is to say, not at fucking all. And to find himself giving a shit about what someone else thinks is a bit of a novelty. First time in a long, long time.

On those hard days he finds himself picking up the radio that he keeps dialed to the same frequency that Ajay responded to, just the once, and speaks to a silent void.

Just waves in the ether, the sound of his own voice.

No idea if the boy’s even still listening, but he can’t seem to help himself either, as he takes to talking about whatever comes into his head. Kanye West. Mumu Chiffon. The past. What might have been. Ishwari. The dubious merits of both Amita and Sabal while he spouts that tired old baseball analogy, even as he thinks of Mohan and their friendship that could almost have been something else. Until everything went straight to hell in a blaze of utter madness.

Ishwari’s eyes in Mohan’s face. He never looked at that face and thought ‘son,’ only a part of his heart, a piece of him that he’d thought forever lost. And it’ll be his downfall. The boy’s gotten past his guard, right through the cracks in him. Making him _care._

And then, one evening, the radio crackles to life.

“_Are you there,_” Ajay whispers, so softly that he wonders if he’s said anything at all over the slight static.

“Ajay? Ajay, my boy, is that you?” He tries and probably fails to keep the elated desperation out of his voice. Pathetic. But he doesn’t answer back, not for a long minute. Two. And then nothing but a series of beeps, some long, some short.

He’s incredibly rusty at it, but he grabs for a scrap of paper and his pen and taps his finger on the table along with the sequence. Ajay repeats it twice, and then the radio goes dead.

What he gets out of the Morse code is **_gpwatchesberabi_** and then a series of numbers. He sits there and contemplates that, not even sure if he has it entirely right, because it makes little sense. GP watches, berabi? What is a berabi? Or is it, Be Rabi? That amusing but oh-so-annoyingly rebellious DJ? Along with what looks as if it might be a phone numbe…

Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.

Pagan has plenty of time to contemplate the utter hellscape his life has become while he picks up his own phone and enters that number into it, prepares to text him and pretend to be _Rabi Ray Rana._ The boy has to be laughing his merry ass off. It’s some kind of karmic retribution, has to be.

But he does it, because his boy needs to know that there’s someone out in the wide world who gives a shit whether he lives or dies. His Golden Path buddies would probably be sad if it happened, but it would merely be the regret of losing a good tool. Valuable, but another would serve just as well.

He decides to keep it simple as he tries to recall what that imbecile would talk about on his guerrilla broadcasts, beyond insulting his wardrobe and prattling on about his own shit. Just in case this insane plan needs to stand up to some scrutiny.

_Hi_

No punctuation, that idiot wouldn’t use it.

_Hey Rabi, how u doing_

God, this is so stupid.

_Doing good man_   
_Used any good bidets lately_

All right, perhaps it’s a _little_ amusing, he grudgingly concedes.

_Lol u know it_   
_my ass is squeaky clean_

Jesus.

Could this be what passes for _flirting_ amongst the youth of today? He recalls that moron saying something about how Ajay’s eyes were the color of the ocean, but has Rabi even looked at them? Unless he were trying to reference the metaphor of Homer’s wine-dark sea, but surely not, that’s far too much credit given to Kyrat’s educational sys…

_U still there?_

_Yeah was just thinking about your eyes again_

_What about them_

_how you can get lost in them,_   
_how I’d know them anywhere_

_Yeah well i dont know about that but_   
_dont let Pagan catch you talking shit_   
_about his suits on air again_   
_saying he looks like a metro pimp_   
_he’s gonna come after you :D_

_gotta go tho take care of yrself_

Now that naughty little shit really _is_ fucking with him, but he can’t find it in him to care. Not when he imagines what his mischievous laughter on the other end of the line would sound like.

Beautiful.

That short conversation tells him a great deal though, perhaps even more than Ajay means to tell him. If the Golden Path is monitoring the boy’s communications, it means they trust the glorious Son of Mohan a good deal less than he thought they would. It means if he were caught at this little game and the truth came out, they’d most likely dispose of their little Ajay problem before he could get a strike team in there to extract him.

In too deep. They’ll have to play it out to the bitter end, his boy their puppet, their weapon aimed at him.

That _take care of yrself_ burns brightly on the screen, and he rubs a thumb over it. You too, dear boy.

You too.

***

When Yuma finally forces his hand, he decides that he’s also going to drive a stake through Willis Huntley’s black, betraying heart. Should’ve done it years and years ago, when that fucking snake whispered and _whispered_ in Mohan’s gullible and far too-trusting ear.

Yuma just might get the same treatment.

She forces him to make calculations regarding Ajay’s welfare that he never, ever wished to be burdened with and that aches as well, in its own way; the necessity of it, that things between him and Yuma have finally reached the breaking point. That he has to weigh how much to give away, how much to admit to caring, all of it balanced on a wire. But it’s absolutely the boy’s life on the line. This isn’t like capturing one of his outposts. People don’t tend to leave Durgesh.

At least, not in the conventional manner.

He radios in and lets Yuma know he’ll be visiting personally and he can all but hear the satisfaction on the other end of the line. He does it and understands exactly what it is he’s bartering and what she doesn’t say, and the suppressed rage burns in his throat.

_I have something in my possession that you want, that you care for, and I’ll hold that in my hand and squeeze just to watch you dance._

When he arrives at Durgesh Prison, she barely lets him set foot out of the fucking Jeep before she fires the opening salvo.

“Come look all you want. But he’s still getting the drugs, just like the rest of them,” she says nonchalantly, just to see what he’ll do.

“Well, that’s your prerogative I suppose,” he replies in the same bored tone, picking at an imaginary hangnail to hide the tension in his shoulders.

That tension doesn’t subside until fairly late in his visit, when at one point he finally spots the chance he was hoping for. He gets twenty seconds alone with the guard and lays a hand on the man’s shoulder, lets it rest there heavily.

“Half a dose if you please, when she asks you to administer it…don’t you fucking _dare_ look her direction,” he snarls in the man’s face when his eyes move past him to Yuma’s turned back, down at the other end of the tunnel. They snap to his again and stay there when Pagan digs his fingers in deeply. “Look at _me._ If you dare betray me in this you’ll be down at Rajgad yourself, a decidedly less pleasant prospect than merely being one of Yuma’s lab rats. You and your whole fucking family. Half dose.”

“She’ll know,” the man breathes, steady but with a touch of anxious fear in his eyes. Good. “General Lau will know, she checks the syringes…”

“Half in him, half inside his jacket lining, you _fucking_ imbecile,” Pagan hisses back. The officer finally nods and he lets him go, straightens his fatigue jacket just as Yuma comes striding back.

It will at least give Ajay a fighting chance.

When they finally bring him to the holding cells so he can have visual confirmation on Ajay himself, it takes everything in him to twist his face into a smile when he lifts the bag from the boy’s head and sees his expression. Ajay quickly schools it into hard, blank lines, but the anger and the terror and the wounded betrayal in his eyes cuts into him. _Not you,_ those eyes say. _Not you too._

Yuma lounges across from them in her hard wooden chair, deceptively relaxed, but he can feel the tension in her aimed like an arrow at his back. He turns and sits down beside Ajay, closely enough to let his knee brush his…and Ajay flinches from him minutely. The pain of that cuts at him too, but he can hardly fault him for it. _Steady now, my boy, stay steady for just a bit longer,_ he thinks at him, both of them under the spotlight of Yuma’s predatory gaze.

Pagan forces his voice into flippant tones…but he means each and every word that comes out of his mouth.

“I want him alive…and with all the bits that count intact.”

She might roll her eyes but even now, even this late in this accursed game, he still has _teeth._ And she would do well to remember that fact.

Mere seconds now. He has one chance, as he takes Ajay’s arm and prattles on about prison love and the view and god only knows what else, he’s not really paying attention to himself…and digs a thumb into the inside of his elbow. Hard. _Pay attention to this, and not what I say._ The boy starts against him but doesn’t flinch away this time, and he wraps an arm around his shoulders to get him even closer. Their bodies shield the motion of his other hand from her eyes.

** _Escape be strong get down mountain I will be there will help. Escape…_ **

He’d practiced that rapid-fire sequence for more than an hour, running through the simple message again and again until it was in muscle memory. He holds his boy close and taps it desperately into his arm.

Repeats it.

And Ajay sags against him minutely in relief. Message received, and he pulls him tighter for the briefest of moments, nearly a hug…and lets him go. Turns his back and walks away, leaving him alone there in that icy stone chamber that will soon be the mouth to hell.

All his other choices were so much worse.

As he strides out he raises his eyes and meets those of the guard in passing with a threat, a promise.

“This fucking storm,” Kamran mutters beside him. “I keep losing visual on him.” The wind spits ice all over the windshield and the squeaking wipers manage to get rid of most of it, but in his currently agitated state that rubber-on-wet-glass squawking is going to drive him mad. “Can you spot him, sir?”

Pagan suspects that this is a ploy to give him something to do besides fret in the back and check the first aid supplies for the hundredth time, but he obligingly leans between the front seats and takes the offered binoculars. Kamran had cranked the Jeep’s heater on full-blast when they pulled up here, as close to the gates of Durgesh as they could get without being spotted. Knowing the boy would need the warmth. The vents blow uncomfortably hot air in his face but he ignores it while he takes a look, his other hand on Gary’s shoulder for balance.

His two most trusted men. Perhaps the only people in this hellhole of a country that he _can_ trust. All three of them had quickly stripped down to their shirtsleeves in the roasting heat of the cab, but Gary has his gear in hand, ready to slide it back on at a moment’s notice for the retrieval.

They might only have minutes.

Blowing gray-white, is about all he sees, that and the spotlights at the gate trying and failing to make headway in the gloom. Zooming past that, he can just make out the mass of the bell tower and the occasional bright splash of crimson of a heavy gunner’s uniform in the skirling gray. But then the wind drops for a precious few seconds, just a few…and on the edge of his vision he catches a flash of green.

Right as an explosion thunders across the mountain.

“_Fuck,_” he hisses, as attack dogs bay, as the deep chattering roar of the big guns rolls down the canyon. “Left of the bell tower, up in those big rocks.” He shoves the binoculars back into Kamran’s hands and retreats to the backseat to let them do their jobs as Gary dives into his parka and body armor.

“Got him. I’ve got visual, he’s on the zip line,” Kamran says with remarkable calm, as he flips the headlights on to give the boy somewhere to aim for, secrecy be damned at this point. “Gary, get ready, he’s got them all on his tail. About thirty seconds, right side…”

His own eyes are trained on that right side when he sees Ajay crest the top of the wall and drop down onto their side of it. And watches as he crumples at the bottom, unmoving for long seconds while Yuma’s guards howl for blood. His boy shoves himself to his feet and breaks into a wobbly run only to go down and not get up again, still far too close to the gates for comfort.

“I’m going,” he barks, his fingers on the door handle. But Kamran reaches back and spreads his hand out on his chest to stop him, and it’s the mark of his deep respect for the man that he doesn’t break that hand.

“We’ll get him,” so gently that he subsides despite himself, and Gary jerks the door open and bolts into the snow in a swirl of icy air.

They almost immediately lose sight of both of them. Minutes pass, and he begins to wish for a stiff drink, a rail or two, even a cigarette, but he ruthlessly shoves his agitation down and unfolds the blanket they brought with them in readiness. One of his own, as it happens, off his own bed. The softest, warmest one the servants could find.

Something slams into the side of the Jeep, hard enough to make it rock and startling the absolute shit out of him. Kamran whips around in his seat with a handgun trained toward that sound but it’s Gary, back and so covered with wind blown snow he looks shaggy with it, like a goddamn yeti. And in his arms…

“Give him here. _Give him to me,_” much more sharply than he intended, but gentle Gary understands. He helps him wrestle Ajay into the backseat in an awkward tangle of gangly limbs and Pagan immediately gets to work stripping off his wet clothes. It’s so fucking cold out there that they refroze on him to the point where they crackle with ice. Soaked with sweat and snowmelt and blood. A lot of blood.

Gary jerks the other door open and hits the front seat.

“He’s in, _he’s in, go go,_” he shouts at Kamran, right as the first shots from Yuma’s men slam into the snow around them. Kamran floors it before they’ve even gotten the doors shut, the Jeep bouncing hard over frozen ruts until they hit the smoother surface of the road in a plume of snow.

While Gary turns awkwardly in his seat to get bandages on the worst of Ajay’s wounds and a shot of painkiller in him, he yanks his own shirt and trousers off in feverish haste, Ajay limp against the seat and no more than half-conscious. His dark eyes roll wildly. Any less awake and he’d probably be fighting with them.

Finally, _finally_ he’s able to carefully take him in his arms, his poor boy, his lovely boy, drugged to the gills on the remnants of Yuma’s stuff and what they gave him. Covered with scrapes and bruises and luckily what turned out to be only one hole in him, a clean in and out through his upper arm. Far, far too thin. His skin against his is cold enough to force a hiss through his teeth as Gary reaches back and helps him get the blanket sorted, gets them cocooned together.

This is his job in this little operation, to hold him close and be a human hot water bottle. Let the heat soak into his battered body while Kamran gets them to a safe location. Ajay shifts on top of him with a satiny rub of chilled skin against his as he heats up enough to start shivering, a good thing. They got to him just in time. Looks like he’ll get to keep all of his important bits after all, as he examines an ear for signs of frostbite.

Buried up in the blanket with him like this, they may as well be completely alone there in the backseat of the Jeep.

“Don’t you worry, lovely boy,” he murmurs. “I’ll warm you, get you nice and warm all the way to the middle. I said I’d help, didn’t I? And here we are.”

“Pagan,” and between his chattering teeth and the meds he’s not very intelligible, but it’s clear he understands who he’s lying on, who has him. The relief in his voice warms _him_ to his middle. “_Pagan._”

Ajay slides his arms around him and presses his cold face into the side of his throat and kisses him there, his mouth trembling.

The answering flutter deep down in his chest and belly both elates and terrifies him. An unexpected sensation, but one so old and familiar it’s as if Ishwari herself reached out to touch him. To tell him one last time, _I loved you, so much._

_And now I give you that love again, through him._

If his life has taught him anything at all, it’s that there’s no sense in trading today’s happiness for tomorrow’s misery, as he tucks down further into the blanket and wriggles to get more comfortable. Determined to enjoy the moment, that fluttering joy. He ought to be grateful to feel anything of the sort, to not be utterly dead inside as his fingers find the downy hollow at the small of his back and stroke there. Ajay settles against him more solidly and goes limp, drowsing off against his shoulder in absolute trust. He has no idea where they are but that doesn’t matter at all, they’re safe, Kamran and Gary won’t let anything happen on their watch, they have the boy’s clothes up front and spread out on the vents to get them dry.

All the rest of it can go fuck itself.

Breathing is good, pulse nice and steady when he checks. Nothing to worry about now but holding him while he sleeps, a pleasure that’s its own sort of drug. He can’t quite seem to keep his own eyes open in the drowsy warmth, Ajay’s slow breaths gusting across his collarbone. He gives up on trying to stay alert and lets go, surrenders himself to this peaceful eye of the shitstorm that surrounds them. Tucks his arms around him and drifts as well, his lips against his shaggy black hair.

It’s such a shame that the boy will probably remember none of this. Morphine and sheer exhaustion are a potent combination.

The Jeep slowing to a halt and the sound of Kamran setting the emergency brake bring him up out of a doze, Ajay a now warm, still unmoving lump against him. Still clutching him in his sleep.

“How long do we have,” he asks the car in general, and Gary answers.

“His clothes are nearly dry, but things are quiet. Nothing on the radio.”

Take a few more minutes with him, let him rest, is what Gary means. He’s getting a sizable Christmas bonus this year, he decides. Both of them are. Good help is so hard to come by.

Friends, even harder.

Now that the boy is all warm, the blanket catches his scent and even that is so familiar. Under the sweat and dirt and blood, some achingly familiar note that invokes old, old memories. Mohan’s arm around his shoulders, both of them a little drunk and laughing. Ishwari’s bright eyes and gentle hands. Happier times. He could have stayed there all day, just holding him and breathing him in until he woke and either asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing, both of them undressed, or held his face and whispered his name and kissed him again.

No time though. Never enough time, although perhaps it’s better this way, to not know which the boy would have chosen. To keep this moment of warm peace preserved.

An observer that day would have been treated to the bizarre sight of the King of Kyrat wandering around barefoot and with his signature pink jacket worn open over his bare chest, examining a bell tower as if he were sizing up a dubious bit of real estate. But there was no one around for miles, only a family of tapirs that squealed and disappeared into the brush at the sound of his voice.

“This one will do,” he tells Kamran. “Decently stout door to keep the bloody wolves from chewing on him, at least,” and Kamran radios for their troops and patrols to clear the area so that the Golden Path can get in and mount their little rescue mission and smugly pat themselves on the back for it.

He insists on carrying Ajay himself, still wrapped up snugly in the blanket like an overlarge burrito, and he snickers even as he holds him the tighter. Once he gets him inside he rouses a bit, enough to stand there wobbling while Pagan hands him his t-shirt.

“Unfortunately we haven’t much time,” as he grabs his denims off the stack of clothing and shakes Gary’s neat folds out of them. They’re still a bit damp, but it can’t be helped. “I have a sleeping bag here, you can lie down again in a moment.”

“Pagan, are you trying to get me naked,” he slurs with heavy-lidded eyes, and Pagan snorts laughter.

“My dear, you’ve _been_ naked…well, near enough to it. I’m merely trying to get your trousers back on you.”

“Oh.” The trace of disappointment in his voice is probably entirely in his imagination.

The shirt he manages well enough, but Pagan has to hold the pants for him to step into, unsteady hands gripping his shoulders. Once they’re back on him, Ajay leans against him in dizzy exhaustion, forehead against his neck.

“I wish I could stay here with you all day, I do,” Pagan says gently, wanting nothing more. “But we have to signal your, hmm…_friends_ so they can come pick you up. So go ahead and get your jacket on, there’s a good lad.” He assists him with that too, since his fumbling fingers keep missing the fastenings, the poor boy.

Once he’s dressed Pagan helps him lie down and gets the bag zipped up around him. One that’s tattered and dirty enough to have been dredged up from anywhere, and thus unlikely to provoke suspicion. As safe and warm as it’s in his capacity to provide.

“You gotta go now?” Ajay mumbles.

“I’m afraid so, darling. Take care of yourself, won’t you?”

“…’kay.”

Heedless of the gritty boards under his feet, he kneels and gives him a kiss of his own, a press of lips to his forehead. Ajay clumsily brushes his fingers against his hair, touches his ear and then lets his hand drop like it’s too heavy to hold it up any more and closes his eyes. He’s asleep again in seconds.

On his way out with the incriminating blanket over one arm, he pauses in the doorway and gives himself a few moments to watch his sleeping face. Only a few. No time, never enough time. He makes sure the door is shut firmly behind him against god-knows-what, tigers and honey badgers and such, and signals with a lifted finger to Kamran.

Kamran nods and fires the flare gun into the sky above the bell tower, the signal that will bring the Golden Path running. They must be well away from here when they arrive, for if Amita or Sabal suspect he had a hand in this, they might just kill the boy right then and there. Or torture him for intel on himself and _then_ kill him, more likely, finally able to come to a consensus on something for once in their lives.

For the second time in twenty-four hours, he has to walk away and leave Ajay to the dubious mercy of his enemies. Has to walk away and leave him behind with a combustible combination of love and impotent rage burning in his throat.

His other choices were all so, so much worse.

That night, and for several nights after his sleep is a little easier. He gets undressed and rolls himself up in that same blanket, fancying that he can still smell a trace of him in the cloth, although it’s surely only his memory. Nevertheless, he dreams of holding him. And when his inner landscape grows troubled and threatens to sink into fire and blood and regrets, he breathes in and is able to return to that other dream. Warm and peaceful, Ajay’s lips against his throat.

***

The next time he actually sees his boy again is not for months. But before that, he becomes the one to aim him like a weapon, on a trajectory for Yuma like a self-guided missile hellbent on revenge. Not that he can blame the boy for _that._ She had it fucking coming.

She was always so sure that she knew his mind, his heart. So sure of what he would choose.

No, what was troubling was the scene of absolute bloody carnage left in Ajay’s wake. He orders a detail to the mine to retrieve the bodies for burial, and the images that his soldiers send back to him make the short hairs at his nape prickle. Not the gore; blood and viscera have long ceased to have any impact on his grubby soul, but the fact that Ajay killed more than twenty of Yuma’s handpicked men and Yuma herself with nothing more than a kukri certainly does. _Mauled_ them with a kukri, hacked them to pieces while drugged out of his mind.

For the first time, a cold little spike drives its way up under his breastbone and lodges itself there when he thinks about his boy. That potent blend of love and worry remains, that fear for him, but now there’s just a touch of fear _of_ him as well.

The ridiculousness of it all makes him laugh, but it comes out as dark and bitter as that feeling. When was the last time he was truly _afraid?_ Of anything?

But still, that cold remains.

_I saw that broadcast with pagan_   
_And heard about the thing with Yuma_   
_You doing okay_

_I hope that you are_   
_Take care of yourself_

No answer to that for more than a week. Communication has been…understandably sporadic, but it’s a thing they’ve come to say. Take care of yourself. I’m thinking about you. At least, that’s true on his end.

_Sure Rabi, yeah_

_sure thing_

Hardly convincing, as he rubs at his chest. Not convincing in the slightest, but there’s nothing to be done for it.

The next time Pagan gets to actually see him in person is the day that he kicks the dining room door in, his handsome face offering no expression at all from behind the barrel of his lifted gun.

That hard, dark laughter threatens to bubble up in him again and erupt. A powerless king and a motherless son, both of them trapped in this fucking farce. His sister dead, half of the erstwhile Golden Path dead, the rest of Kyrat hostile to them both. The only enemy they _don’t_ have is each other, really. He sits there calmly with knife and fork and the barrel of Ajay’s gun in his face and wonders idly if the boy has thought his way through to that conclusion.

But in that slow-motion eternity, he has his own revelation; if he’s to die today, if it must be done, he would much rather it be his boy than anyone else.

The transfer of a kingdom is seldom a _peaceful_ affair, after all. The King is dead, long live the King.

In the end however, Ajay stands there and thinks it over and decides to forego putting a bullet in his head, which he really does appreciate as he lets out a slow breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. Ajay’s quietly emotionless voice pains him though. One _hell_ of a trying day for everyone involved.

They walk together and he tells him everything all over again, but unlike with Divya he keeps his voice light and easy. Unwilling to burden him more than he must, to add to the weight on his tired shoulders. Then he stands there and stupidly tells him about how killing all those people had been _fun,_ and while that’s absolutely true, he should have at least tried to say something…comforting, or reassuring, if he’s going to keep dropping the world out from under the poor boy. Or even something like _I know how you feel, like you’ve been ripped up, sliced up from the inside, like you’ve swallowed razor blades but it gets better, it will, it’ll scab up and scar over and I swear it’s going to be all right._

But instead Ajay nods in agreement like his words make perfect sense to him, those years of his crazed and wounded and laughing madness. His boy with the leopard’s eyes.

Pagan leans against the door to their little family shrine and watches the ramrod-straight line of Ajay’s back as he moves away from him and also realizes that his other question has already been answered. No sense in him sticking around. Like that old song, _should I stay or should I go?_ He had it at about a fifty-fifty chance for this too, but…well. He and Gary and Kamran have a contingency plan ready to execute, have for months, the helicopter having already been brought up here and the pre-flight checks done.

None of it is his anymore. The Crown has been passed, the moment Ajay walked into that shrine without a backwards glance at him. Much like that day at Durgesh, when he had no idea which way the boy would have gone if he had awoken with a clear head: clutch him closer, or shove him away.

Now he has his answer. Hell, he’s quite lucky to not be lying in the dining room slowly cooling with his brains spattered all over the wall. He ought to be grateful, but somehow it doesn’t make him feel one iota less disappointed. He signals to Gary with a twirl of his finger to start the engines.

But as he prepares to take his leave it turns out that Kyrat’s freshly anointed King has a different plan for him. One that involves flagging Gary down, which he could’ve overridden with a word, a gesture, the merest glance. Gary looks back at him and sees…something in his face, and lands them again without a word. When he walks over to the doorway and ducks his head under it, Ajay reaches up for him. But instead of the embrace he half expected, he seizes him hard enough to bruise and drags him out of the fucking thing, gets him backed right up against the cold metal side of it.

“You’re not going anywhere, not after you tell me all of that shit. Now you just wanna run off without any explanation? I just got you _back,_” and now there’s raw emotion in him as Ajay growls right in his face, their noses nearly touching, but there’s also a plaintive note under that growl. The boy’s hands squeeze his arms to the point of discomfort, but one of his thumbs caresses the inside of his elbow.

A tiny plea. _Stay._

“No, no, I suppose I’m not,” he murmurs, Ajay so close he can feel his breath brush against his lips, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks, that fluttering in his chest. Warm all over, really. “I’ll tell you as much as you care to hear, if that’s what you want. But I have to ask…why bother to wave a gun in my face?”

Ajay eases his grip on him gradually, like he doesn’t quite trust him not to bolt. This time, his voice is so low he can hardly hear him over the wind.

“I needed to do it, to find out how I really felt about you. If I even _could_ do it.”

“And how did it feel,” he says, just as quietly.

Ajay raises his eyes to his, and in the depths of them he sees the warmth he was hoping against hope would be there. Dark and warm and so achingly familiar.

“Like I was holding it to my own head.”

Pagan thinks that over, ponders the events of the last few months, of blood and body counts and his wild boy. His heir, a man savage and generous and gentle and brutal by turns, but never cruel, never that. The best parts of Ishwari and Mohan together. He thinks of Divya, and how he can’t live in his own dark dreams anymore. She showed him that, held him so tightly even as she pried him open just a little.

Just enough to let this love in.

Pagan recognizes the hard sheen of misery in Ajay’s eyes behind the warmth, walking wounded and harried by his own ghosts. Lord knows he’s seen it in the mirror often enough. But he knows what to do, how to help.

She showed him that too. He reaches out and takes Ajay’s hand in his, squeezes his fingers when he doesn’t pull away.

“I won’t leave, darling boy. Not if you don’t want me to,” he tells him, and he’ll keep saying it as often as Ajay needs to hear it. _You don’t have to be alone._

And leans in even closer, and presses his lips to his.

There’s a moment where Ajay tenses up all over and he’s sure that he’s going to back up from him. And it would tear him apart to have to pull away, to drop his hand, to know that the gulf between them is just too wide to cross.

But he doesn’t. Ajay grips him again, only to melt against him with a little muffled sound and finally, finally kisses him back, a velvety rub of that beloved mouth. Gentle, and warm. Shockingly so.

“Come in here with me,” Pagan says against his lips. And with equal gentleness pulls him through the door.

This time, he’s the one that tugs Ajay down with him onto his bed and twines himself around him, that draws him down and inside himself. It’s been a very, _very_ long time since he’s done this and it hurts a bit at the start. But it’s also a _good_ kind of hurt, like pulling a scab off and finding new pink skin underneath. And then it doesn’t hurt in the slightest, not after Ajay holds him close and slides into him as deeply as he can get, surprisingly gentle with this too. Shockingly _good_ as he slowly fills him with slippery heat and they both gasp with the sudden pleasure of it. 

Pagan wraps his legs around him, slides his arms around his sweating shoulders nice and tight and squeezes, urging him to move.

When he gazes into Ajay’s eyes he recognizes that look too, him running on autopilot and maybe not quite seeing him, or seeing someone else entirely, but that’s all right. He knows. He knows and won’t let him fly to pieces, won’t let him go.

“Don’t you worry, my lovely boy,” he whispers in the shell of his ear when he feels the building tension in him, his orgasm close. “I’ll warm you from the inside out. I’ll chase all your ghosts away,” and when Ajay trembles all over and comes deep inside of him, Pagan twines his fingers into his thick shaggy hair and holds him, holds him.

Later, it’s Ajay that wakes him with warm hands running over his skin and pulls him into his arms, wants him inside with a whispered plea. Pagan finds himself smiling at that, a real smile for the first time in a long time. He prepares him with careful hands as Ajay watches him with those devastating eyes and this time, _sees_ him. His beautiful boy, who runs his big hands all over him and sighs in pleasure.

“Love you,” he mutters roughly into the tender skin of Ajay's throat once he’s eased his way into him, also slickly hot and very, _very_ good. He holds still to let him adjust and also finds himself trembling all over when Ajay pulls him in as deeply as he can, to get them as close as they can possibly be.

No, not a grand and passionate declaration of love...merely more of that entirely unflattering honesty wrung from him. The utmost truth.

“Pagan,” is all he says, just his name…but he says it like he did that day at Durgesh. Full of relief, like waking from a bad dream in a lover’s warm arms.

Safe.

No idea what they are together yet, or even what they can be. But Pagan thinks that perhaps they can smooth out all the cracks in each other like this, when they fit together like they were made to. Like they can come together again and again until all the scars and holes and broken places are filled, until they’re both as whole as they can get. And then make love some more for the sheer fucking joy of it, as Ajay rubs his nose against his and kisses him with a brightness in his eyes that wasn’t there before. Like they can make new dreams, new memories, with someone who gives a shit. Who _cares._

It feels like they can, anyway. Won’t know until they try.

End

***

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments/ideas/suggestions welcome!


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